My favorite week November 24, 2008

Hey all, this is my favorite week of the year.  And this year it is especially awesome.  A few things that make me happy:  I love holiday weeks at work.  Everyone is a little more relaxed, and folks are happy and excited.  Secondly, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  I love having a feast day, where it is all about preparing food and hanging with friends and family.  I prefer it to Christmas, because I like eating better than the pressure of giving gifts.  Third, this week is my birthday.  Yay!  Fourth, my pals Christy and Jud are visiting from Atlanta and that is a lot of fun.  Finally, Friday is the Black Friday Beer festival.

I don’t know what you are doing for Thanksgiving, but you should come to my house.  My favorite local barbecue joint, Holy Smokes (they catered our wedding party for those of you that were there) are going to smoke my turkey for me.  Its going to be great!  No gravy, only barbecue sauce this year!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Classic Spinach Artichoke Dip November 16, 2008

People, I have an artichoke problem.  I am addicted to them.  When I was a kid, for our birthdays my mom would fix whatever we wanted for dinner. I always wanted artichokes (and lobster, but that is a different post, and for the record never got it). I love to steam  artichokes and eat them one leaf at a time (a pal of mine served one like this as a party appetizer and I nearly ate it all), or if I am lazy I will eat them from a can.

Artichoke Spinach dip is amazing stuff. I learned how to make it in college.  One of my roommates earlier this decade and I practically lived on the stuff.  Lately, I have been leaving it alone; it is awash in fat, after all.  Its been a year or so since I made it.  So I made it again last night.  Like an addict, my desire to eat the whole pan of it came roaring back.

Now some people like to muck around a put mayonnaise in their dip.  Unnecessary and weird.  Some folks like to put mozzarella on top before it gets baked,  but that is not necessary either, plus those little stringy bits of cheese get in the way.  Serve this stuff with hearty crackers or bread, wimpy tortilla chips can’t stand up to the heft and will break.  This stuff is so good, even those without artichoke addictions will love it!  Here you go!

Classic Artichoke Spinach Dip

Preheat oven to 350

1 pkg frozen chopped spinach

1 clove garlic

1 can artichokes (NOT marinated) progresso is the best

1 package cream cheese (not the low fat kind, I swear it tastes funny)

1/4 cup shredded parmesan

In a saucepan, combine spinach and garlic and heat until spinach is thawed.  Meanwhile, drain and chop the artichokes roughly.  Drain excess water off of spinach.  Add artichokes, Parmesan and cream cheese to the spinach and stir to blend.  When its all combined put it in a pan ( 8×8 square, or pie pan will work) and bake for about 20 minutes.  Then, eat while hot.

Beantown II November 15, 2008

So, anyway, our trip to Boston.

The wedding of my friends Catherine Finneran and Michael Healy took place North of Boston in the pretty historic town of Newburyport.  Chris, my pal Mary, and I drove up together on Saturday and explored a little before heading off to the wedding.  Newburyport has some good bakeries, a lovely waterfront and an old tannery that has been converted into a completely green solar powered gallery of shops and restaurants. Pretty cool!  The wedding was happy, beautiful and a great opportunity to catch up with old high school pals.

Sunday we took commuter rail back to Boston and headed over to Somerville where we stayed the next two days with my cousin Trumbull and his partner Lia.  Trum ownes Barrett Tree Service East, so if you live in the Boston area, you should hire them!  He has been doing this for years and really knows his stuff.

We continued to play tourist around the city; visited Chinatown, the waterfront, the Museum of Science, and my favorite new discovery, the MIT Museum.  A small museum near Central Square devoted to the work of professors and students of MIT, as well as some history of the university.  The exhibits were fascinating!  A large exhibit of robots, holography, and my favorite, sculptures by Aurthor Ganson, MIT artist in residence.  These charming mechanical sculptures are fascinating to look at, but also whimsical.  For example, an artichoke leaf appears to be “pulling” a large almost bicycle.  Really, really neat.  Plus, not nearly as crowded as the Boston Museum of Science.

Boston is a great place to visit; easy to access all areas of the city via the T system and very walkable.  We really lucked out that the weather was mild so we could spend so much time outside!

Beantown November 12, 2008

Chris and I just got back from a long weekend in Boston.  We were there primarily to attend one of my high school pal’s wedding, but decided to make a vacation out of it as well.  It was a great trip!

We arrived on Thursday and met my parents at the club they belong to.  Its a really cool place, in a 200 year old mansion just down the hill from the state capital building on Beacon Street.  It is very formal, conservative club, so as long as you are in the common areas men have to wear a jacket and tie and no denim allowed!  Small price to pay to stay in such a lovely place.  The food is outstanding: the chef is the coach of the US Olympic Culinary team (I know, I didn’t know it existed either!) and every meal we ate there was fabulous.

Thursday we stayed in the city and prowled around Back Bay with my folks, visited a number of great galleries (I found a bronze of a puffer fish that I loved but was more than our new roof cost, sadly) and the Fluevog Store, and generally experienced big city envy.  Which then started our discussion of why all the great cities are in cold climates.  What is up with that?

On Friday Chris was very, very patient while my mom and I took him on tour of my hometown, Winchester MA.  He saw my house, my schools, my church, and we ate at my favorite deli, D’Agostinos.  That place is amazing!  If you ever find yourself in Winchester, go there.  Get an Italian sub with everything!  I promise you will not regret it.  After lunch,  we went out to Lexington and Concord to get a dose of Revolutionary War History at Minuteman National Park.   Finished the day with a big dinner at the club to celebrate Chris’ birthday.

More on out trip later….

Loco for Locopops November 2, 2008

Last night I had some folks over for enchiladas….homemade by me, some black bean (for the vegetarians) but most chicken.  They kicked butt!  Dessert?  I was kind of stumped…I didn’t have a lot of time to bake because yesterday was the Wake Audubon Annual retreat, then I had to go by the office, etc, etc.  So I just bought a whole bunch of Locopops.  They were soo good, and the perfect ending to such a cheese heavy meal.

For those of you unfamiliar with Locopops, they are paletas (Mexican frozen treats on a stick, like a Popsicle) which are made in variety of familiar (strawberry and cream) and exotic (pomegranate rosewater) flavors.  Locopops is based in Durham and has stores in Raleigh, Durham, Hillsborough and Chapel Hill.  The pops come in two types:  cream based and water based.   Every week the store has carries the same 5 cream and 5 water based, but has another 10 or so “guest stars”.  I have developed quite an addiction to them.  My favorites are The Mexican Chocolate, which one of the staff told me “tastes like Christmas”: creamy chocolate with flavors of cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom; Cranberry Orange, which is very orangy with a cranberry tang, and Pear and Candied Ginger.  I have a friend who swears by the olive oil, and claims it is best with balsamic vinegar on it.

Best of all, many of the ingredients in Locopops come from a local urban organic garden tended by inner city students.  This garden is part of the SEEDS program which “teaches people to care for the earth through garden based progects…”.  A treat that tastes good and does something good for the community!